1. Field of Invention
Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed generally to surface-mount technology (SMT), and more particularly to systems and methods of applying materials to circuit boards for use in surface mount technology.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Stencil printers and other SMT material application systems typically have a single conveyor track on which printed circuit boards may be introduced into and removed from the printer. These conveyor tracks are designed to handle a particular size of circuit board. In order to handle multiple sizes of circuit boards and/or increase the production of the stencil printer, a stencil printer may be outfitted with two different conveyor tracks, resulting in what is referred to as a dual-lane implementation, which may include a front lane disposed adjacent a front of the stencil printer and a rear lane disposed adjacent a rear or back side of the stencil printer or having both lanes centered about the printer. In a Dual Lane/Dual Print implementation, both lanes could be active and evenly spaced within the printer. With a dual-lane configuration, the two lanes are disposed along a common plane, but typically fixed in the Y-direction with respect to a specific rail orientation (front fixed rail or rear fixed rail for each lane). Dynamic sizing of conveyor tracks to handle different sizes of circuit boards may not be feasible on some dual-lane implementations because one practice is to use two printers in series and print one circuit board on the front lane of one machine and another circuit board on the rear lane of the other machine. Because the print lanes typically use specific board tooling, the lane size cannot easily be adjusted. This restriction limits pass through capacity of the system to the same size board or to a board size that is equal to or larger than the board being printed.
Stencil printers typically contain an individual personal computer or “PC” and the only standard level of communication to adjacent pieces of equipment is through SMEMA. For example, a printed circuit board fabrication line may include one or more pieces of equipment, such as stencil printers, dispensers, pick-and-place machines, reflow ovens, wave soldering machines and/or inspection machines. SMEMA is a simple protocol that is used during such printed circuit board fabrication lines, and, unfortunately, only indicates whether the printed circuit board is ready (or not) for board transport and that the adjacent machine is ready to receive the board or not.
Typically, process lines including stencil printers and placement machines are operated by a pull system with the placement machines controlling the introduction of product into different pieces of equipment in the production line. This is typically done in an attempt to maximize cycle time performance, primarily of the placement equipment. The production line is usually designed around the placement machines. The placement machines are typically the more expensive equipment in the production line, and so effort is made to keep them operating at maximum capacity. Errors discovered in the printing process may require manual intervention to rectify, which can impact the flow of materials into the placement system, decreasing the utilization of the placement system.